In this Saturday, Dec. 23, 2017, file photo, Minnesota Vikings’ Case Keenum celebrates after an NFL game against the Green Bay Packers in Green Bay, Wis. The Vikings are back in the playoffs after a year’s hiatus with hopes of becoming the first team to ever play a Super Bowl in its home stadium. (AP Photo/Mike Roemer, File)

He understood two Aprils ago, when the Rams traded up for the No. 1 pick and two weeks later, when they drafted Jared Goff. Keenum heard the press conference, same as we all did, when Jeff Fisher and Les Snead declared Goff “our guy” and the Rams “franchise quarterback”, and in the months that followed, as the urgency for Goff’s ascension grew feverish and the chants at the Coliseum began and reporter after reporter asked about him losing his job before he’d even lost it, Keenum knew that sooner or later the day would come.

When it finally did, he was upset, nonetheless. “In my mind,” Keenum said, “it’s my team. That’s the way I viewed it. It’s my offense, and I took ownership of it.”

This was how Keenum had survived as an undrafted, undersized journeyman, after all. He never saw himself as the quarterback keeping another quarterback’s seat warm. He’d always envisioned something more than what the Rams, what everyone, had in mind for him.

Apparently, Case Keenum knew something no else did.

Fourteen months after the Rams took away his starting job, Keenum will start at quarterback for the NFC favorite Vikings on Sunday, as they sit two wins away from the Super Bowl. His season has been the stuff of sports movie cliche — the former practice squad quarterback signed for a dirt-cheap, one-year deal and then thrust into action due to injury — and, apparently, destiny — before leading his team to the doorstep of the promised land.

Keenum is the only undrafted quarterback in the NFL to take double-digit snaps this season, and yet, he has outperformed nearly every single player at the position. His completion percentage (67.6) ranks second in the NFL, behind only Drew Brees. Football Outsiders ranked him as the NFL’s best quarterback this season in their DVOA metric, ahead of Tom Brady. It’s not unreasonable to think he will garner a few MVP votes later this month, after starting the season third on his own team’s depth chart.

And yet, as the Vikings have bludgeoned their way to 11 victories in 12 weeks, with their once-journeyman quarterback guiding a mostly faceless offense, Keenum has not been given the credit he deserves. To some, he remains the placeholder he was in Los Angeles, just with more offensive weapons and a competent system around him.

But it’s time that perception was put to rest. It may have been fair to cast doubt at first, considering the 9-15 career record and the uninspired play from the year before, but Keenum has proven week after week that he is not the quarterback he was in Los Angeles. That much is definitive, no matter what happens this postseason.

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“I feel like I’ve gotten better,” Keenum said in November. “I’ve worked at my craft my whole life, especially my six years now in the NFL. I didn’t come into the NFL to be on the practice squad or be a backup. I came in to play and I worked on playing and I worked on being the best quarterback I could be.”

As the Vikings look like contenders to appear in a Super Bowl in their home stadium, Keenum is playing the best football of his life, and he’ll be paid handsomely for that unexpectedly Herculean effort. More than likely, some quarterback-needy team will sign him for upwards of $20 million this offseason, mere months after he signed with Minnesota for $2 million, plus incentives.

The Vikings may opt to let Keenum go elsewhere, as they hand the offense back to Teddy Bridgewater or Sam Bradford. There’s still plenty of time to decide upon that future.

But no matter what happens, no matter where he is this time next season, Case Keenum has proven he’s far more than a placeholder.

Ryan Kartje is a sports features reporter, with a special focus on the NFL and college sports. He has worked for the Orange County Register since 2012, when he was hired as UCLA beat writer. His enterprise work on the rise and fall of the daily fantasy sports industry (http://www.ocregister.com/articles/industry-689093-fantasy-daily.html) was honored in 2015 with an Associated Press Sports Editors’ enterprise award in the highest circulation category. His writing has also been honored by the Football Writers Association of America and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Ryan worked for the Bloomington (Ind.) Herald-Times and Fox Sports Wisconsin, before moving out west to live by the beach and eat copious amounts of burritos.